


love, and how vast

by allthegardens



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Family, Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthegardens/pseuds/allthegardens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It is difficult for everyone else, that is. (A history, shared.)</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	love, and how vast

 

 

-

 

When you are very young, this is all you really know: the pull of a hand in yours, hooked by the curl of two fingers; the way you fist your other hand in your brother's shirt, breathing softly through your mouth against the nape of his neck. you sleep in this fashion, through the summers and winters alike, though the heat makes you sweat through the bamboo mats from the places where skin meets skin.

You are loved dearly by your parents, by your relatives. Three is a fortuitous number, and though it has no real consequence, you and your brothers were born early, were born small, were born after a hard labor. one after the other; the eldest first with great wailing lungfuls of breath, then yourself, then the youngest with hardly a sound but lips tinged blue. For this reason, and for the timing of his birth, he is perhaps treated as precious (however unconsciously) by you two for the rest of your lives.

What little you weighed at birth is all but forgotten now as you outgrow first your shirt and then your shoes, sneaker soles worn thin and pale belly exposed when you raise your arms to be lifted up by a caring uncle, by your soft-smelling grandmother with gray curls in her hair. your mother murmurs softly, how quickly boys get bigger- as she mends socks in lieu of purchasing new ones. Days are spent playing in cramped stairways or on cracked curb sides, running through fruit stalls and toy stalls, you and your brothers tugging and pulling each other behind your mother as she braves noisy traffic-filled streets to visit a friend, to buy the week's groceries.

Home is an apartment six floors up, dim yellow lighting, view of the street below and a thin branch of the muddy Huangpu river snaking its way through. Evenings, you three like to crowd into a single chair to watch sports on a staticky TV as the smell of cooking wafts from the tiny kitchen. Later you will all fall asleep this way. Your tired father will carry you to the bed you share, wrapped around each other close, then closer.

 

The three of you are inseparable, and sometimes even your mother has trouble telling you and your brothers apart. It is difficult for most everyone to tell you apart- difficult for everyone else, that is.

 

-

 

lazy summers in the inner city- so humid it's like breathing water, yellow overcast sky for weeks until it breaks to rain three days straight and the sloping streets are flooded up to your ankles. turn on the fan, crank open the rusted window, hang the laundry out to dry- in the morning when it's cool you'll go with your brothers to the market to haggle cabbage prices. heaven is a watermelon shared between the three of you, the skin of it so thin you can break it with your grubby hands and eat it with the juice dripping sticky down your chin, laughing, as you swat their hands away.

(the large part of the year is spent in school - you are the better learner between brothers, though not by much. Your younger brother, the first to smile at a classmate, your older, first to the finish line out of all the other boys in the grade - but for those months, the three of you are together always.)

Many times it is the same story. with deepest night settling in, you find it impossible to rest, heart pounding steadily to the anxious flutter of your eyelids, to the hum of heat in your chest. chirp of crickets, sound of a distant motor and even more distant horns. From the corner of your eye you can see the cherry-red glow of a mosquito coil and resist the urge to scratch your ankle. You've been bitten five times. the sheets are stifling, dim light slants onto the covers and peels across the room in long ribbons. you cannot seem to find the bottom of your lungs. You roll over with impotent frustration, moving around noisily until-

 

(brother. what is it?

 

nothing.  
can't sleep.)

 

sound of breathing, sound of water shifting from the outside the window. you are meant to stay in your own bed, but old habits are hard to break. you stand up, eyes weak from staring at the moon, feel your way blindly to their sides. push away the covers, fold yourself in. It is this way- lacking conscious thought or action, tucked against the crook of a neck, palm resting between the wings of your shoulders. The curve of a spine.

 

Your heart slows, steady.

 

-

 

(you shield your eyes in the midday sun to consider the distance from your feet to the hoop. small of your back damp from sweat.

i want to be a basketball star when I grow up, you say with conviction. firstly, you would grow to be much more. second, by your side your brother snorts, says

 

what, you're gonna be the shortest pro basketball player in the world?  
and rubs your head, grinning. he's a full centimeter taller.)

 

-

 

before the eastern coast is ravaged by attacks, before the city of your birth is transformed into wreckage and slums by virtue of being your country's largest port, before you lose a great many of your most treasured people, before that-

before that, your mother takes you to see her sister, your aunt, who lives in a district ten minutes by bike from the pacific ocean. ten minutes by bike and she leads the way through crowded roads, faded crosswalks, the bright plaza of restaurants and tiny street-side convenience stores. trees overhead lining the path. two bikes between the three of you so you scuffled briefly and here, now, your younger brother will wrap his arms firm around your waist, dangle his legs as he sits sideways behind you on the rack while you pedal. the ground moving in a blur beneath sandaled feet. he has promised to switch places for the ride home.

enormous white boulders comprise the seawall, through you are called back by your mother before you can climb any of them. as for the people lining the beach, there are many. you toe off your shoes and leave shallow pools of water wherever you tread. squint into sun, stay too long in one place and you begin to sink. you chase your brothers across the margin between land and sea with ungainly steps, dare each other to stand in the tide up to the knees, then to the waist, then to the shoulders.

the ocean is not blue. the ocean is brown-green, the sand more like silt in texture and color. any castles you build do not hold, any holes you dig are flooded before they are finished. if you write your name, it will last perhaps two seconds. you do it anyways. you write the names of your brothers next to it. more of the sand ends up on your face, on your shins, than anywhere else, slapped onto your older brother's cheeks and smeared across his back before you must beat a hasty retreat, smiling.

to get to open water you wade through a field of grasses and seaweed, passing by those who are afraid to walk farther because they cannot swim. the ocean is immense, stretching into the horizon for what seems like an eternity, cold in a manner that saps the feeling from your legs. if you close your eyes, there is the muted roar of waves far beyond the shore, moving underwater; taller than entire buildings, taller than entire skyscrapers. from where you stand, the only thing larger than the sea is the sky- and the sky is blue. this far from the city proper, the sky is painfully blue.

here, now, if you lick your wrist you will taste salt and dirt. wind whipping your damp shirt around your frame. crick in the neck from looking too far up for too long, tide pulling you out, your brothers pulling you back past the grass and back to shore. you cannot swim, but you are not afraid.

 

-

 

this is what Trespasser leaves in its wake: a swathe of destruction across San Francisco Bay, an uninhabitable area ten miles in diameter where Oakland used to be, paralyzing fear in the minds of men. a fifty year time-span before the Delta, supplying freshwater to two-thirds of the state, will be anything other than toxic from nuclear fallout and kaiju blue. newspapers and televisions blare constant warning and all you can see when you close your eyes is the ruin of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is also all the media ever seems to show. following Manila and Vancouver and Sydney, you and your brothers are sent away by your mother to relatives further inland. you wish to stay, then you wish to know why your parents will not also come.

 

our jobs are here, she says, tilting her head up to look at you, hand firm on your chin. our livelihoods, our apartment, our own families. everything we own, everything we have attachment to. life does not stop for one person, it is not simple or easy to pick up and leave the only place you have known for decades. it is not so easy for us two, it is not even truly an option for your grandparents, for many of my cousins, my siblings, my old friends. darling, you know the truth of it. we must make do with what we have, to live in constant fear is hardly to live at all,

 

you three are no such burden to house and shelter- you will be safer the farther you are from shore. here, we must look after each other because it is the measure of family to look after each other. wherever you go, you and your brothers must do the same. so promise me this.

 

-

 

(my sons, she says. and how quickly do you grow)

 

-

 

and again, you are sixteen, you are choked with the same fear, the same uncertainty that lives in everyone's throats. sixteen years old, this before anyone can predict with any accuracy the pattern of kaiju attacks, before the concentrated production of jaegers, before your country has a jaeger to call its own. the city of your birth is the largest port in your country, is the largest port in the world. it is the beating commercial heart of your nation. twenty million people call it home.

 

when it happens, you and your brothers are many miles inland. you survive, your mother and father do not.

 

-

 

in the aftermath, you are empty but for a fire. you are sixteen, you are young. So naively, you make yourself another promise.  
never again, if with your bare hands; is what you think- foolishly, honestly, truthful to the point of humiliation.

 

-

in the aftermath, this is what you have: your brothers, a purpose.  
this is what you learn: the PPDC are establishing a military base in your country. headquarters close to breach points to maximize response. a superstructure capable of housing and maintaining jaegers, a factory capable of building them from the ground up. Shatterdome, they call it. 

 

(your family was not poor, but you were far from rich. Your parents, no longer young. And vividly, your mother taking higher-wage night shifts at hours that drew the color from her skin, your father the office worker, stumbling through the door in time for dinner, too fatigued to change from his button down into something more comfortable.) and vividly, and intrinsically, and perhaps beaten into you three from the time you are small, the understanding that you could get anywhere in life if you were smart, if you worked hard.

(elbow to elbow in a sea of shaken people, amidst the shrill wails of children on the last operating railway out of the city. there is no room to sit so you sleep standing up, bundled into your father's old woolen coat. the scarf your mother knit you for last year's harsh winter. head resting on your younger brother's shoulder, other hand in your older brother's pocket. close enough to feel him swallow twice and exhale, nearly too soft to be heard. you are leaving the only home you have ever known, but then again, home is wherever your brothers are.)

 

You take a shared suitcase, two duffels, and this knowledge with you on the train to Hong Kong.

 

-

 

For a time, food is scarce. (Later on, this will manifest itself in more subtle ways than thin cheeks and raised ribs. Well-fed and well-rested, when dank streets and bruised faces are a mere memory, you and your brothers still unthinkingly scarf down meals in a manner other rangers do not. Quickly, in the event that it will be taken from you, in the event that you are on someone else's clock.)

It is not uncommon to go without eating for a while; books are more important, a place to sleep is more important, the sprain in your brother's wrist from the last match is more important. On the most part, you three are tall, and able-bodied, and more likely than not to pass for older than your years. As children you and your brothers would pick fights with those bigger and stronger than yourselves, asking for trouble. This is not so different. It is easy enough to fall into the brutal world of underground brawling rings; it is not so easy to stay there, and to win, and to keep winning. Some fight better on hunger, or at least you learn to. (another thing you learn: pain can be swallowed. in the end, this is what sets you three apart from the rest.)

In the days before the breach, street fighting is nearly nonexistent in Hong Kong, unheard of since its decline in the last century, outlawed in most civilized places. Afterwards, it still is, but only in name. The shadow of a war with neither end in sight nor guaranteed victory ensures its new function as a distraction for the privileged class, for the city's restless underbelly. Easy enough to be singled out, turning a profit for greedy men (on the backs of fighters, on the backs of your brothers). Easy enough to be pandered as entertainment for mobsters and wealthy patrons and socialites; criminals, old money, new rich. 

You three are tall, and able-bodied, and work well together. This is what you are given: the bare bones of close combat training, ratty uniforms, an ultimatum. Thrown into a pit, told to crawl. Disbelief when you and your brothers claw your way out but it is simple- when you are too weary to fight for yourself, you fight for them.

You fight first for the right to exist, then for the reputations of your benefactors, then finally, finally, you fight for your own sakes. You gain notoriety, a replacement word for the ability to put on a show and the inability to understand how to give up. You and your brothers are wildly popular, never mind that you were not born in this city, it loves you, it loves spectacle, it loves the underdog. And something strange happens then: you and your brothers begin to represent something greater than the three of you. If you are honest, if you are alone, you will perhaps acknowledge it. Unasked for and inevitable, people begin to see in you something approaching hope.

 

-

 

This part is unclear to you, but some things you know: word of mouth spreads, you three are local celebrities, being the first and largest of PPDC bases, the city sees its fair share of personnel. Routinely, liaisons arrive to visit the politicians and upper crust, asking for their cooperation and more frequently, their funding. It is the height of disrespect to let distinguished guests go neglected, and if they are wined and dined at the best restaurants and then taken to see the best sights, no one blinks an eye. And if after a grueling match an influential sponsor asks for your attention on their guest's behalf, well-

look sharp, there's someone come to see you, has a lot of questions. he'd like to know more about the three of you; how old you are, how long you've been fighting, how long you've been together. how much you've lost to end up here, of all places. he'd like to know your names. he'd like to know if you would consider leaving Hong Kong. to go to Alaska, on the other side of the world.

 

-standing in front of you is the first man to move a titan's mechanical arm, first man to move mountains. face of the Jaeger Program, set to pilot Japan's Coyote Tango by this time next year.

You wipe the blood from your mouth and grin wetly.

 

who's asking?

 

-

 

The nature of a jaeger is to have two pilots, this every child knows. Except-

in the Kwoon, you fight your older brother, you fight your younger brother. You watch as they fight each other. Each time it is to a draw, and each time the fight ends only at the sound of a whistle. Your instructors deliberate, then take you three to meet the creator of the Drift herself.

(She gives the three of you a considering smile, begins to explain: 

the Drift is a manifestation of shared existence-

 

small wonder that the Drift, then, for you and your brothers, is incomparable familiarity.) 

 

-

 

(and if after practice sessions, after combat simulations and compatibility assessments, if you and your brothers breathe in time or turn your heads in time or pass the ball the tray the weight without looking first-

 

who could say it was any different from how you were before?)

 

-

 

Your jaeger takes a year to build. That year, the three of you take up permanent residence in Hong Kong Shatterdome, the first sight of which manages to take your breath away- your older brother recovers quicker and tells you to close your mouth.

The place is a home, the city is a home. Cold walls all around, wide open spaces, dangerous heights. Forest of machinery and clanking pipes, thrum of hot electricity and energy from the people who live here, work here, sacrificed many things to be here. Your younger brother, first to make friends, your older brother, more reluctant- though it is a given either way. You are close to the other rangers, to your crew, to the technicians and engineers. You don't know how not to be; your jaeger was a dream shared between many. Run a palm along the rails, crane your neck to see the ceiling past a mess of wires- grey sky above through dirty windowpanes. In the morning, your brothers will wake you for training before breakfast in the mess, hastily eaten and stolen from their plates. 

You have briefings and responsibilities and patrols but slow nights are this: your quarters bathed in weak yellow light, lull of rain from a summer storm, endless card games played to either a scuffle or a draw. Quiet but for the rustle your younger brother makes as he leans against your back. If you turn to the side your older brother will be reading, easily convinced to let you push your feet under his legs. This is how you close your eyes.

When given a second chance to protect those things you hold dear (and a third, and a fourth-), you take it, breathe easy. Cold water and rough waves and monsters in the night are nothing to the memory of loss, the force of conviction, the sound of your pulse hammering in time to those of your brothers. If the fear rises in your gut and threatens to choke you, swallow it. If you are beaten and broken, know this: for the person you are now, it is harder to stay down than it is to climb back to your feet. 

Here, the walls mute most sound. You shift in the midst of a deep slumber, you dream of your jaeger. Halfway across the base, through hundreds of feet of thick concrete and reinforced steel, crimson typhoon shifts along with you, minutely, there all the same.

(sometimes after victories you three are too drummed up for conversation. those days, you fight each other in the Kwoon until exhaustion. sometimes after hours of patrolling the coast, too worn to do more than collapse into a bunk, it is easier than blinking: blearily shoving at your brother's side to move into cramped space, knees knocking together, arm across a back, breath brushing softly against your cheek. a kiss on the temple, tucked under a chin- the last thing you remember before falling asleep.)

 

-

 

in your second year, horizon brave falls from outliving its scraped-together shell and primitive technology. in your fifth year, shaolin rogue falls as well. historians will mark this as the watershed moment of the war- afterwards, attacks come quicker than jaegers can be built and you are fighting a losing war. in your sixth year crimson typhoon takes down three kaiju solo before shatterdome closures relocate striker eureka and cherno alpha. soon enough, the Marshall is given command of Hong Kong and the remains of the PPDC. your seventh year holds an undercurrent of desperation and purpose. 

you see all around you pinched lips and eyes marred from tension. however, when the stories are told, they are told the right way: the time you fell asleep halfway through a patrol follow-up meeting and no one could rouse you. the time typhoon’s lead technician laughed at the sight of your younger brother, fresh from the engine room with all the grease markings to show. the time the Marshall’s daughter took your older brother down in the Kwoon while you egged her on, then she took you down after. the time the LOCCENT Chief apologized clumsily and publicly, in your language, for spilling drink on you in the canteen. you pretended at anger, then smiled and responded in english. the time you arm-wrestled the russians for the right to play your own music. the time you and your brothers went into the city and were gifted mandarin fruits, two boxes of ginseng, a wristwatch, overwhelming gratitude. 

the time you three climbed above the landing bay in lingering heat of august, night sky lit from the metropolis below. the time your crew thought to buy a small sponge cake the day before christmas, the day you and your brothers were born.

 

-

 

your world moves slowly towards destruction, but those who can afford to think as much are a thousand miles inland. to you, many things stay the same. you eat, you sleep, you train. you play pick-up games with your brothers in your spare time, same as you did when you were children. sometimes you indulge yourself- but for you it is hard to think of another life, perhaps foolish, certainly futile. if it could ever exist, there would be the three of you, same as in this world, same as in all the worlds.

from the time they first enter a cockpit to the time their jaeger is scrap metal, the average life expectancy of a ranger is half a decade; before the mark III escape pods, much less. you know this like you know your own heartbeat, you knew this before you were told. you did not come to be here by conforming to statistics, your fellow rangers are not who they are by way of listening to the odds. you've heard them all: probability would tell you that for every fight your chance of losing is greater than your chance of winning. this stops no one. 

it is no surprise when the double event is announced, the entire base has prepared for this day. you suit up, report to Control, listen for orders. you do not speak; there is no need.

(when the Marshall asks you to put your life on the line, you go willingly, as you have since you first became a ranger. it is not too much to ask, a few lives for millions, for more than. you know what place you hold, what responsibility you shoulder. years ago, you made a promise to your mother and a promise to yourself-)

 

you look to your brothers. years ago when you lacked the courage or the will to fight for yourself, you fought for them. you still do.

 

-

 

 

when you are facing your own death, this is all you really know:

you feel fear. you feel your brothers' fear- it is one and the same. you hear their thoughts- they are one and the same. the darkness is nearly complete and rain sloshes down in great waves, thrumming in your spine. there is no more time. you see the kaiju lash out, too quick for human comprehension, and you think

you think

 

 

the sea, and how vast.

 

you think, love.

 

 

 

you think,

cold mornings lit by streetlight. sleepless nights, mother's singing. the ring of a bicycle. fog rolling off the river, smell of fish cooking in the next room. warm milk before bed, cracked plaster walls, fan overhead in the heat of summer, patter of water on the window, in the gutters, pounding feet and throbbing pulse, curve of a neck and sweat dripping down your cheek from racing in the dusty streets fighting in the dusty streets hands in fists back to back to back the first drift the second drift all the ones that came after crashing waves open mind and open eyes and stand tall stand firm side by side are you always with your brothers yes we go everywhere together a lifetime is enough a lifetime is enough hand in hand, hand in hand, laugh against shoulder smile against palm, look, the sky is clear today hand in hand, hand to hand, hand to heart

 

 

heaven is-

 

 

 


End file.
